In automatic focusing (AF type) cameras, generally, the distance to a subject to be photographed is measured by triangulation.
In this method, a far infrared beam is projected from a light projecting element toward the subject, the reflected light from the subject is received by a light receiving element, and the distance to the subject is calculated on the basis of the point of the light receiving element at which light is received.
In such a method, wherein only a pair of light projecting and light receiving elements is used, however, it is difficult to obtain the correct distance unless the subject to be photographed is positioned at the center of a finder. In view of such circumstances, a so-called multi automatic focusing (multi AF type) range meter is also known (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 87-223734) which uses a plurality of pairs of light projecting and light receiving elements. In this multi AF type range meter, the light projecting elements and the light receiving elements are disposed correspondingly one to one, and each pair of elements is employed for measurement of the distance of only one of the subjects distributed in different directions.
When the triangulation method is used to measure distances in a near region or macro region, since the angle of reflection taken by the reflected light on the subject is large, the reflected light extends beyond the light receiving element. Therefore, it is difficult for conventional multi AF type cameras to photograph in the macro region.